Episode 255: Caleb Connolly & Pablo Correa Gómez on postmarketOS

Guests Caleb Connolly | Pablo Correa Gómez Panelist Richard
Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard
Littauer is joined by guests Pablo Correa Gómez and Caleb Connolly
to explore the development and sustainability of postmarketOS, an
open-source Linux distribution designed to extend the life of
mobile devices. The team dives into the project's mission,
governance, and the community-driven nature of its work. They
discuss the challenges related to funding, primarily through grants
and Open Collective donations, and the significance of upstreaming
Linux kernel support to collaborate with other communities like
Alpine Linux. The conversation also highlights the growth of the
postmarketOS community, encouraging contributions from both
technical and non-technical supporters, and the importance of
comprehensive documentation. Additionally, issues of privacy,
telemetry, and user support are examined, alongside the steps
towards making postmarketOS more professional and economically
sustainable. Press download now to hear more! [00:01:30] Pablo
explains postmarketOS and its mission to empower people to have
full control over their devices and promote sustainability.
[00:02:12] Caleb talks about the governance of postmarketOS that
started with a few contributors working on a package repository on
top of Alpine Linux and overtime more maintainers were added.
[00:03:59] There’s a discussion on the structure of the team, how
the community around hardware components forms sub-communities
bases on common SOCs, and the focus on improving tooling and the
ecosystem rather than building a product for end users. [00:06:29]
Richard discusses the massive, refurbished phone market and asks
about how postmarketOS fits into this ecosystem. Caleb shares their
experience working on the OnePlus 6 phone and explains the
technical process of making the device work on upstream Linux and
the challenges of hardware enablement. [00:10:05] Pablo explains
that the project is largely funded by volunteer work and Caleb
describes the challenges in deciding which devices to prioritize
for hardware enablement and how all hardware work so far has been
done by volunteers. [00:14:09] On the importance of upstreaming,
Pablo explains that postmarketOS works hard to contribute back to
the Linux ecosystem rather that maintaining device-specific patches
and postmarketOS is downstream to Alpine Linux but contributes much
of its work upstream to maintain sustainability. [00:20:09] Richard
asks about how the project builds shared context and onboards new
developers and Pablo and Caleb explain how the project relies on
its wiki page to provide extensive documentation and how the
pmbootstrap tool makes it easier for new contributors to get
started with porting new devices to postmarketOS. [00:25:01]
Richard asks about telemetry and how the team tracks their impact.
[00:25:39] Pablo talks about how they receive community feedback
through events like FOSDEM and have seen an increase in donations,
social media engagement, and community members. [00:28:39] Caleb
reflects on the pros and cons of collecting telemetry, which could
help guide development but may also create unwanted challenges by
focusing too heavily on specific devices. [00:31:30] What are Pablo
and Caleb most excited about for the next year? Pablo is excited
about professionalizing the project, starting to pay contributors,
and scaling the project’s growth sustainably, and Caleb jokes about
looking forward to the “pre-market OS.” Quotes [00:12:00] “We are
trying to grow organically, bit by bit, and be able to pay people
to do core things where volunteer work doesn’t reach.” [00:15:06]
“In the environment we live in, where you have X amount of code per
update, it is totally unsustainable.” [00:16:18] “As a distro, we
predominately put together the pieces that other people give us.”
[00:19:13] “Downstream patches allow to experiment, but long term
are a burden. That’s the same for every project.” [00:19:22] “The
sustainability goes beyond reducing waste and also goes into the
social ecosystem and how we maintain projects.” [00:30:33] “We know
we are not ready for end users, but we need to build the structure
and economic support.” Spotlight [00:32:32] Richard’s spotlight is
DOSBox. [00:33:03] Pablo’s spotlight is FOSDEM and the FOSDEM team.
[00:33:57] Caleb’s spotlight is processing.org. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org
(mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) richard@sustainoss.org
(mailto:richard@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Discourse
(https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Caleb Connolly
Website (https://connolly.tech/) Caleb Connolly-treehouse
(https://social.treehouse.systems/@cas) Pablo Correa Gómez Website
(https://postmarketos.org/core-contributors/#pablo-correa-gomez-pabloyoyoista)
Pablo Correa Gómez LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablo-correa-gomez/) postmarketOS
(https://postmarketos.org/) postmarketOS (Open Collective
Contribute) (https://opencollective.com/postmarketos) Gnome Shell
& Mutter
(https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2022/09/09/gnome-shell-on-mobile-an-update/)
postmarketOS Devices (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices)
Sustain Podcast-Episode 195: FOSSY 2023 with Denver Gingerich
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/195) Software Freedom Conservancy
(https://sfconservancy.org/) FOSSY 2025:July 31-August 1
(https://2025.fossy.us/) linaro (https://www.linaro.org/)
postmarketOS Wiki (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices)
pmbootstrap (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Pmbootstrap)
compost.party (https://compost.party/) pmbootstrap v3 by Caleb
Connolly (https://connolly.tech/posts/2024_06_15-pmbootstrap-v3/)
DOSBox (https://www.dosbox.com/) FOSDEM 2025
(https://fosdem.org/2025/) Processing (https://processing.org/)
Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/)
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guests:
Caleb Connolly and Pablo Correa Gomez.